


occlusion

by pseudocitrus



Category: Tokyo Ghoul, Tokyo Ghoul:re
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Gen, One-Sided Attraction, post ch131
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-30 01:37:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11453283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudocitrus/pseuds/pseudocitrus
Summary: The tradition of ghoul bitemarks.





	occlusion

**Author's Note:**

> another fic for kirishima week on tumblr! this is the first time this year i’ve completed more than one story a month…not bad :’)) ✨
> 
> this fic is related to events up to like tg:re:131, though the timeline may not match whatever’s happening in canon. and, mostly it’s 4 some ayahina fluff ♡ i hope u like it & have a good day ahead of you!

“Ayato-kun. Ayato-kun. _Ayato-kun._ ”

His hearing isn’t _that_ bad, but she has to repeat it several more times before Ayato finally jerks and peers over at her, blinking.

“…huh?”

Hinami frowns at him, and then quickly smiles. “Um…do you mind if I join you?”

“Ah…yeah.” He seems confused, but then he shakes his head, and speaks out more firmly. “Sure. Come on up.”

Her heel was already on the bottom step of the ladder. She climbs.

:::

There’s a certain set of platforms down here that Hinami has come to know well. The scent is faint, but there’s a definite coffee-ish aura that hangs around here somehow, like magic. Sometimes she arrives to see Yomo-san perched up here, with a manga over his crossed legs; sometimes, it’s Touka, reading or scribbling on some spare calendar paper; and sometimes, like now, it’s Ayato, with legs swinging off the edge.

“Hi,” Hinami says cheerfully.

Ayato spares her a glance, and a nod, and then looks forward again.

“It’s been a while,” Hinami offers.

“Mmm,” Ayato says, in what seems like agreement.

She arranges her dress, and sits down beside him.

:::

The last time she was up here, it was Touka that she saw, though Hinami hadn’t seen her from below. Hinami climbed up just to have a little space away from the rest of everyone else — something she picked up from Ayato, maybe. She carried a book in her mouth (carefully), and it dropped as soon as she stood on the platform and saw the blood.

“ _Onee-chan_!” she gasped. “What — what —”

“It’s fine,” Touka told her, quickly. “It’s fine.”

“But — your _neck_ —” Hinami started, and then, she stopped.

:::

Ukaku-types can take so long to heal.

She nibbles on her thoughts a little, and then just lets them out.

“Hey. Have you seen Onee-chan recently?”

“Yeah,” Ayato says. “I have.”

Not  _Yeah, why?_ Or, _Yeah, and?_ He says it with the kind of certainty that tells her that he knows exactly what she’s talking about.

“That whole thing, about having a mark like that given to you — it’s pretty amazing, huh?” Hinami says. She watches his face carefully, but his expression doesn’t shift.

“I guess that’s a word for it,” he answers finally.

Is he not happy about it? She knows there’s been stuff between Ayato and Kaneki before. Not to mention between Ayato and his own sister. But somehow…she thought…

Well. Maybe it was stupid to assume anything.

_It’s been a while_ , she’d said. It was true: and underground, the months that have passed in their friendship have become even further warped. The first time she saw his face, she remembers that she felt tears come to her eyes. _I know you_!

But.

_It’s been a while_.

Abruptly, she wavers. The things that she had leaned on to keep herself connected to him — Touka, or even the gardens they wordlessly perused at their old HQs…

It’s been a while. Maybe…maybe now, they aren’t really…

Ayato is still staring into space.

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen…something like that,” Hinami muses aloud. “That…kind of marking. I, um. I noticed that there weren’t a lot of ghouls at Aogiri that had it.”

“Lots of scars,” Ayato says. “But none there.”

“Yeah! Yeah.” She pauses, trying to collect her thoughts. Trying to find the reason why she came up here at all.

“My parents had it,” she says, finally. “That mark. It was so faint, but I noticed it, on my mother. I never saw it on my father, but…I mean…it was probably just hidden all the time.”

Beneath his coat. Beneath his uniform. Never seeing the light of day until finally that scar, and everything else, sloughed off into the earth, and then was seen by no one.

Hinami picks at the edge of the platform, her hand twitching. She doesn’t know what she’s trying to say. Her vision is blurring, the way it always does when she thinks of her parents. Ayato still isn’t even looking at her. Maybe he just wants to be alone. She starts to settle her weight into her palms, to push herself up.

“I saw it too,” Ayato says. “But only on my father.”

“Oh,” Hinami says.

“Maybe I saw it on my mother too,” Ayato says, shrugging. “I don’t remember. But my father was always rubbing his, all the time. I don’t even think he noticed anymore what he was doing. One day I got worried about it or something and I asked Aneki if he was hurt, and she explained it.”

He starts to pick at the edge of the platform too, flicking a couple splinters down to the floor.

“I’d forgotten about that…thing. That gory old tradition. Whatever,” he says. “Until I saw it.” He scoffs. “Gross.”

Hinami chuckles, a little. “So you probably wouldn’t…do that?”

“I’d rather do other things with someone that I like,” Ayato grumbles, and Hinami stares at him, and covers up an embarrassed smile. Is he talking about — what she thinks he’s talking about?

“W-well,” she ventures, “I mean — I mean, they probably did _those_ things too,” and before the words even finish leaving her mouth she feels her face heat impressively, and Ayato covers his ears and groans.

“What the fuck! The last thing I want to think about is that stupid half-breed doing — _augh_! Shut up!”

But now that she has a little momentum, she finds herself barreling forward.

“Ayato-kun, you know, Onii-chan is a pretty important person now. You should probably stop calling him _that_ and start calling him something like — ‘Aniki.’”

“Shut up! I’ll die first! _Ugh_!”

“Sorry!” Hinami tells him, brightly, and not entirely apologetically. “Sorry.”

Is this closer, to what it used to be like between them? She can’t remember. But this feels…good. Safe. And…

And after a while, Ayato straightens, and crosses his arms over his lap again, and Hinami starts to wring her hands. She swallows, and then swallows again.

“Um. Ever since I saw Onee-chan, I, um…I keep thinking,” she says. “About how…well. Maybe soon…maybe there won’t be anyone else who knows about…that gory old tradition.” Her voice, just a little, is shaking. “Or…anyone left to teach it to.”

“There will be,” Ayato says. His response is immediate. She blinks up at him, and, for the first time since she arrived, she finds that he is looking at her, straight-on. His face is serious.

“There will be,” he repeats, plainly. “That…Kaneki is making sure of it. And,” he says, “I’m also making sure of it. Doing my best about it. I know that it sucks down here and it’s fucking terrible up _there_ and the only interesting thing there is to talk about is who left a huge bloody gash on Aneki’s neck that’s going to leave a scar forever, but.” He takes a breath. “It’ll be okay.”

“Oh,” Hinami says, surprised by his vehemence. Ayato grimaces at her, and then looks away, again.

“I mean,” Ayato says, “you can believe in…that guy, even if you don’t believe in me. Right?”

“I do believe in you,” Hinami protests.

“…good,” Ayato says, more quietly. “So, don’t worry. You’ll be just fine. And one day we’ll all get out of here, and probably one day someone will bite you, if that’s what you really want.”

Hinami laughs. It bursts out of her, more genuinely then she can remember laughing in…however long it’s been since they’ve been down here. When the tears clear out of her eyes, she thinks that she sees Ayato watching her, maybe, before he sighs and leans back to gaze at the bare tunnel ceiling.

“Is that all you wanted to talk about, Hina?” he asks. “Or is there something else that’s bothering you?”

“Um…no. That was it,” she realizes. Yeah. That was what she wanted to talk about. She brightens, and scoots toward him, just a little closer.

“Do you have any other stories?” she asks shyly. “About your parents, I mean. I…haven’t heard much about it. Aneki never talked about them much. I can tell you some about mine, too. My parents, I mean. If you’re interested.”

“Oh? Alright,” Ayato replies. He leans back further, making himself comfortable. “You start.”


End file.
